next »

[Andy Wolff]

GOSHDARN YOU SUBTERRANE STOP GROWING AAAAAAGH

Although the features you're outlining all seem quite interesting, consider whether it would be better to cut a number of them in favor of actually finishing the game. If you finish the game and still want to add them, it's never too late. Feature creep is a serious problem. Don't let your project die

[Ashkin]

You're right. But this is an important part of the game, right? I want it to be fun! Wandering around in caves aimlessly isn't very fun or addicting.
I guess for now I should keep working how I am and make it playable start to finish. Then I can undergo some testing to see if it's fun enough and how much the player wants to play it. Then I can decide whether to add something to tense things up a little or not.
Right now, though, I really need to slap everything onto a big canvas and work on fixing it all up, unifying the colour palette and stuff. The graphics as they are right now are pretty awful and I put hardly any thought into how the colours mesh together.

[Andy Wolff]

Okay, that sounds like a good plan. I don't mean to cause you to throw away good ideas, though. If you have an idea that's going to make your game more fun while still being pretty easy to implement, don't hesitate to add it in. Fun is probably the most important thing next to finishing the game.

[Franklins Ghost]

What if as you're digging further and further down you run into certain things that hint at something dangerous down the bottom e.g you run into a little creature person escaping from some underworld who hints at something terrible destroying things down the bottom (the big bad). Then the further you get down the more you see the destruction and valuables left behind. Can help with adding a tense atmosphere by hinting at unseen things. So in some ways you're off to these different planets to collect minerals but also monitor these strange disturbances you've been receiving spreading all over the universe.

Just rambling so no need to listen to me. Was just an idea that crossed my mind 

[Ashkin]

What if as you're digging further and further down you run into certain things that hint at something dangerous down the bottom e.g you run into a little creature person escaping from some underworld who hints at something terrible destroying things down the bottom (the big bad). Then the further you get down the more you see the destruction and valuables left behind. Can help with adding a tense atmosphere by hinting at unseen things. So in some ways you're off to these different planets to collect minerals but also monitor these strange disturbances you've been receiving spreading all over the universe.

Just rambling so no need to listen to me. Was just an idea that crossed my mind  

... I'm going to need bigger maps.
[EDIT]

All of the graphics Subterrane uses. Time to overhaul them all.

[baconman]

I'm just impressed with how quickly, steadily, and rapidly this grew into something pretty stellar already. It's quite inspiring.

[Franklins Ghost]

Like the spritesheet, something I definitely want to learn to do with Flash. What type of graphics overhaul you thinking?

[Ashkin]

Like the spritesheet, something I definitely want to learn to do with Flash. What type of graphics overhaul you thinking?

This isn't actually a sprite sheet, it's just all of the game's graphics slapped onto one canvas. I'll have to rearrange them into their individual graphic files when I'm done with them.
I plan on redoing the colours, for starters- there are 72 colours there already. I'll also probably tweak other things that have been bothering me for a while and just generally try to improve as much as possible.

I'm just impressed with how quickly, steadily, and rapidly this grew into something pretty stellar already. It's quite inspiring.

Thanks. However, if you look back to the first pages of the devlog, it's kind of depressing how little has changed in teh core gameplay since then.

[baconman]

If you'd compare your current build with your first, maybe you would be surprised at how much has.

[rek]

escaping should be a last-minute thing as your energy runs out and should invoke panic. I want people to be frustrated if they run out of energy before escaping.

As long as the player is aware of his energy level there's no way you can force them to make a mad dash for the surface at the last possible second. The risk/reward relationship here is pretty obvious, but unless there's something the player absolutely has to do at some nigh-unreachable depth, there is little advantage to delving that far when you could return to the surface early and still win the level.

So perhaps instead of gold and more gold, you need something way down deep that the player needs to retrieve – and return to the surface with, burdened by its weight and/or size – that spells the difference between winning and losing the level.

I've never actually thought of how you'll 'win' the game completely- probably when you pay off all your debt.

I thought that was the point, actually. Combined with the above, the McGuffin at the bottom of the mine could be a mother lode or artifact that puts the player in the black for the level. In other words, that thing more than covers the cost of the expedition, and all the gold you picked up along the way is icing on the cake.

[HyperDuckChris]

Love the idea of paying off debts.

[eigenbom]

All of the graphics Subterrane uses. Time to overhaul them all.

Not necessary! Make the game funnerer first plz!

[jotapeh]

is the latest build in the same place as the first post? the controls feel really loose, like drilling has no weight or crunchiness to it, etc.. am I playing a debug build?

i tried to ninja back through the posts but they seem to link to more or less the same build.

[Ashkin]

is the latest build in the same place as the first post? the controls feel really loose, like drilling has no weight or crunchiness to it, etc.. am I playing a debug build?

i tried to ninja back through the posts but they seem to link to more or less the same build.

Yeah, it hasn't been updated and all that tight controls/better drilling etc. was just me theorizing. Hasn't actually been added in yet.

So perhaps instead of gold and more gold, you need something way down deep that the player needs to retrieve – and return to the surface with, burdened by its weight and/or size – that spells the difference between winning and losing the level.

Yeah, I really like this idea. It seems like the only way to make the player stick around is to place an incentive further down. Probably an artifact chosen from a select group of artifacts placed in a pregenerated room. I think this would tie together with the cave levels/biomes idea well.

Love the idea of paying off debts.

Thanks :> At this point, it's still in a very rough stage and I need to make it more 'central' to the game- maybe I'll ptu the debt counter in the bottom right corner of the menus, making it omnipresent.

All of the graphics Subterrane uses. Time to overhaul them all.

Not necessary! Make the game funnerer first plz!

Yeah, I guess you have a point here. Weekend just started, so funnening will begin.

[08--n7.r6-79.84]

OMG! I played your game and i have delighted with it!! Awesome! AWESOME!!!